Emilio, Luis F., History of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry , 1863-1865

[203] there to Fort Lamar and Secessionville were mutually supporting and detached fieldworks for artillery united by curtains for infantry. The enemy's force comprised some Georgia Volunteers, Lucas's battalion, the South Carolina Siege Train, detachments of the Second South Carolina Artillery, Blake's battery, and the Chatham Artillery. Brig.-Gen. Wm. B. Taliaferro, commanding James Island, made drafts on the garrisons of Fort Johnson, and Batteries Haskell and Tatom, to supplement the small force on the lines. He states that his available troops that day, other than artillerymen, did not exceed three hundred men.

Moving slowly, the Fifty-fourth advanced in line of battle over open and rising ground. Some distance to the right was another regiment and the rocket battery. Our movement caused the retirement of the enemy; but the Chatham Artillery in rear of their skirmish line fired briskly on the Fifty-fourth. We had no field-guns with which to reply; but the missiles from the rocket-stands on our right, while they did no damage, served to frighten the enemy's artillery horses. To avoid casualties from this artillery fire, Lieutenant-Colonel Hooper kept shifting the position of the Fifty-fourth as the enemy secured the range; and the necessary movements were effected with admirable precision and promptness, as on ordinary exercise. Progress forward was made to within some six hundred yards of the enemy, while solid shot came bounding and ricochetting over the intervening space toward the line. Some shells too from guns on our right front dropped unpleasantly near. The regiment in this advance passed to the right of a small fieldwork, or redoubt. A little distance beyond it the Fifty-fourth was halted and ordered to lie